Archive for April, 2013

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s list of “Ten Most Wanted” fugitives dates back to 1950 but the list of “Most Wanted Terrorists” dates back to just after 9/11 and a sense that terrorism had become a strategic threat. Today, the list includes 31 individuals, all of them male and with a single exception (Daniel Andreas San Diego, an animal rights extremist), all of them Muslim:

The Jewish Daily Forward published an article on April 17, 2013, soon after the Boston terrorist bombings entitled “Jews Warn Against Rush to Judgment on Boston Marathon Terror Bombings: Security Experts Say History of Mistakes Teaches Caution.” It contained the usual cautionary tripe and left-wing warnings not to presume anything about the bombings and not to jump to conclusions. The article did not, however, avoid musing about connections to Hitler’s birthday, the Oklahoma bombings, and the low-tech nature of the attacks — all conjecture used by the author to obscure the true nature of the terror act and to pin blame on the unobvious. The carnage was actually carried out by obvious culprits and the usual suspects: Muslim terrorists.

Reports of Christian persecution by Muslims around the world during the month of February include (but are not limited to) the following accounts. They are listed by form of persecution, and in country alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity:

Church Attacks

Egypt: Once again, soon after Friday prayers, a throng of Muslims in Fayoum province, destroyed a Coptic church. The reason cited this time was that the church is “an unlawful neighbor to the Muslims who live adjacent to it and must therefore be moved.” According to AINA, “The mob climbed to the church dome and started demolishing it and setting it on fire. The dome collapsed into the burning church and caused great damage. Muslims used bricks from the dome and the holy cross and hurled it at the altar inside the church, causing part of it to be demolished; all the icons of saints were destroyed. Muslims tried to assault Father Domadios and threw stones at him, but he was saved by a Muslim family who brought him away from the village in their car.” Local Christian families were reported as staying indoors for fear of being assaulted by the Muslims. And, once again, although state security was present throughout this entire proceeding, it did nothing to prevent it. None of the perpetrators was arrested. Two days later, hundreds of Copts demonstrated demanding a halt to the ongoing attacks on their churches. In response, the church was attacked again by Muslims hurling more Molotov cocktails and stones while shouting “We do not want the church.” Some Muslims climbed atop the church again to completely destroy the remains of the wooden dome.

The Tsarnaev brothers pulled off their terrorist attack with great skill but made a fatal mistake in letting their faces and bodies be seen at a heavily photographed international sporting event. This meant that multiple images of them were available for a massive law enforcement squad to comb over and, after three days, identify them by name and appearance.

While it is easy to confuse the recent jihadi attack on Egypt’s St. Mark Cathedral in Cairo as just more of the usual, this attack has great symbolic significance, and in many ways bodes great evil for Egypt’s millions of Christians.

Consider some facts: St. Mark Cathedral—named after the author of the Gospel of the same name who brought Christianity to Egypt some 600 years before Amr bin al-As brought Islam by the sword—is not simply “just another” Coptic church to be attacked and/or set aflame by a Muslim mob (see my forthcoming book, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians, for a comprehensive idea of past and present Muslim attacks on Coptic churches). Instead, it is considered the most sacred building for millions of Christians around the world—above and beyond the many millions of Copts in and out of Egypt. As the only apostolic see in the entire continent of Africa, its significance and evangelizing mission extends to the whole continent, including nations such as Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria, to name just a few. As an apostolic see—the actual seat of an apostle of Christ—the cathedral further possesses historical significance for Christianity in general.

Editors’ note: This article discusses many public figures in the context of the positions they held in December 2012 when the article was submitted. There has been much turnover in government and military posts since then, but the problems caused by political correctness remain despite the changes in personnel.

As U.S. service members risk their lives to combat violent jihadists abroad, military leaders, both uniformed and civilian, capitulate to stealth jihadists at home. By bending to Islamists’ appeals for religious sensitivity, these leaders ignore the most crucial lesson of the Fort Hood massacre: Political correctness can kill.

The War on Training

A key battleground in the war of ideas between Islamists and the West is military training because Islamists seek to suppress knowledge of their beliefs and goals.[1] This campaign hit high gear in 2011 when journalist Spencer Ackerman of Wired launched a series of articles documenting “offensive” training employed by various government agencies. He highlighted, among others, FBI materials stating that Islamic doctrine calls for war against non-Muslims and equating greater religious devotion with the potential for violence.[2]

The Egyptian publication Al-Masry Al-Youm reports that the U.S. government has supplied five containers carrying 140,000 teargas canisters to Egypt’s Interior Ministry. It further reports that this shipment left Wilmington, Delaware, on Mar. 14 aboard the SS Jamestown and that it has just arrived the port of Suez. They cost the Egyptian government just under US$2.5 million. According to ministry spokesperson Hani Abdel Latif, the ministry imported the grenades in order to protect state facilities.

Secretary of State John Kerry has in his head every what-should-be-discredited cliché about the Middle East firmly ensconced in his head. Of course, he is not alone. I just briefed a European diplomat who came up with the exact formulation I’m going to deal with in a moment. What is disconcerting — though long familiar — is that Western policy makers hold so many ideas that are totally out of touch with reality.

They do not allow these assumptions to be questioned. On the contrary, it is astonishing to find how often individuals in elite positions have never heard counter-arguments to these beliefs. It is easy to prove that many of these ideas simply don’t make sense, but it is nearly impossible to get elite intellectuals, officials, and politicians to open their minds to these explanations.

Senators Joe Manchin (R) and Pat Toomey (D) today announced a so-called “compromise” bill/amendment which they claim would increase gun safety through improving “background checks,” but is in truth a flawed piece of legislation, WHICH IS WHY YOU SHOULD ACT NOW TO STOP THE MEASURE (or click here for more options). The title of their bill is Orwellian: “The Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act.” It is double-speak, as their measure infringes on the Second Amendment — it doesn’t “protect” anything. It will in fact push the U.S. towards the establishment of a national gun registry, the eventual effect of which will be the possibility of gun confiscation.

“Under an amendment in the bill to HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), you could have your guns taken away because your private shrink thinks you’re ‘dangerous’ and could send your name directly to the FBI Instant Check system.”